Social contexts, age and juvenile delinquency: a community perspective

Abstract

Objective — Social disorganisation of communities, family bonds, school bonds, the peer group and age, have been shown to be related (either positively or negatively) to delinquency. This study addressed gaps in the literature by (1) using a large and randomly drawn sample of adolescents, within a large number of randomly selected communities; (2) investigating the influence of community social disorganisation directly on delinquency, while including in the same model the moderating effect of community social disorganisation on the micro-contexts of family, school, and peer group, as well as the direct effects of these micro-contexts; and (3) including age as a variable likely to have both direct effects on delinquency and moderating effects on the micro- and macro-level social contexts.